WASHINGTON— A coalition of environmental groups filed a legal petition today challenging the EPA’s weakening of greenhouse gas standards for cars and light-duty trucks for model years 2022 through 2025.

“Propping up gas-guzzlers is an assault on everyone who breathes,” said Vera Pardee, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The EPA’s rollback flouts science, the law and its own mission, all to do the bidding of the nation’s worst polluters.”

Today’s petition for review was filed in the D.C. Circuit Court. It comes after California, 16 other states and the District of Columbia filed a petition over the rollback earlier this month.

“We’re fighting this dangerous decision alongside California and other states standing up for their residents,” Pardee said. “California should not budge an inch on its own tailpipe pollution standards. Those standards are already far less stringent than they ought to be.”

Background
Fossil-fuel vehicles are currently the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas pollution. They also emit pollutants that cause ground-level ozone and lead to asthma and other serious health problems.

In 2012 the EPA set greenhouse gas emission standards for passenger cars and light-duty trucks for model years 2017-2025. The standards aimed to halve carbon dioxide emissions from tailpipes and boost average fleet-wide fuel efficiency to over 50 mpg by 2025. The agency allowed for a midterm evaluation of the 2022-2025 guidelines to be completed no later than April 2018.

In January 2017 the EPA completed the midterm evaluation, concluding that the standards were readily achievable, created overwhelming benefits for the public, and, if anything, could be strengthened. The evaluation noted that since the rules were established in 2012, the technology has become cheaper and improved even more rapidly than anticipated.

On April 2, 2018, the EPA announced it was withdrawing that midterm evaluation and revising the standards.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.6 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.